Calendar: Interface Overhaul

Posted on Sun, Feb 19, 2012:

Our new calendar module is better-looking, more powerful, and has cool new features to come!

We've released a new version of our calendar software. On the surface, most things will look familiar, just a little cleaner, more modern and snappier to respond. But behind the scenes, there's some cool new things going on.

One of the most useful is the ability to pick and choose multiple calendars to show at once. They'll be "mashed" together with individual colors and shown all at once. You can choose which calendars show up by default from the "Preferences" link on the calendar page.

The "Weekly" range now shows a time grid, rather than just a flat list of events. And speaking of ranges, you can now set the default range view from the "Preferences" button. The default is still monthly, but if you have a busy schedule with many events, you may wish to use "Weekly" or "Daily" instead.

One feature that calendar editors will love is the ability to edit calendar times and dates by click-and-drag. On the daily/weekly grid, you can click and drag an event around on the grid to change its time and/or date. You can also resize an event box to change its start or end time. Likewise, the monthly view allows you to drag events around to change their dates. Clicking an empty spot on the grid will ask you if you want to add an event at that time.

The layout of the new calendar module, by default, has a sidebar. This works well for most sites, but if you have a narrow layout and a dense amount of calendar information with long event names, you may wish to use our alternate wide layout instead, where the controls are below the grid. That's easy - you can click the "Wide View" button to switch yourself. If you'd like to change the default for all of your visitors, you can do that from the "Preferences" button.

But best of all is what's to come. This was a ground-up rewrite of the code, which gave us the ability to add new features. Soon, we'll be offering a full scheduling feature, where you can create resources such as rooms or appointments with people - set their available hours, and allow people to book slots through your site. Keep an eye out in the coming months for new features!